The (printed) world in b/w

A couple of years ago, I posted something about the joys of the HP LaserJet series II and III printers (in short: 'last forever, interesting accessories, all now dirt cheap s/h').

Sadly, the Series III that's sat under the desk here is now being temperamental about picking up paper from the tray. Since it's rather tight for space, sorting this out (usually licking my finger and wiping the rubber wheel that pulls the paper out does the trick) is a bit of a pain. So, it's being replaced.

One reason for replacing it, apart from total ingratitude given it's worked fine for fifteen years, is that printer speeds have increased. The II and III's 8 pages a minute is about a third the speed you can get for not much now.

The replacement's a Samsung ML-2510, which PC-Pro had on their 'A-list' as best personal mono laser printer for most of the past year (it's still their recommendation for 'value'):

Verdict: Fast, cheap to run and offering flawless text quality, this is a great-value option ... Even a 20-page PDF with plenty of pictures didn't trip up the ML-2510: it finished in 47 seconds - a highly respectable 26ppm. ... exceptionally easy to take care of. ... The only serious omission from the ML-2510 is an Ethernet port...

... however I've managed to end up getting two of them, which is one too many. The cheapest price I can find on Froogle is £56 (although you can also pay over a hundred for one at some places).

Anyone interested at £50? Comes with a three year warranty rather than the usual one, if you pretend to be me :) because one of the suppliers messed me around a bit and threw in the extension to be nice. Delivery to a London station included, because 5kg is a lot more portable.

(Oh, why a laser printer? Speed, quality and cost: if you're printing b/w pages, a laser is typically faster, produces better quality results particularly on inexpensive paper, and costs much less per page... especially if you have an 'one cartridge' inkjet.)